BOOK REVIEW: This Bird Has Flown: The Enduring Beauty of Rubber Soul, Fifty Years On

The 2010s are a remarkable decade as every year seems to be a 50th anniversary for something or other that happened in that most epochal of decades (at least in terms of music and cultural change), the 1960s. Since 1965 is often considered the year that pop music truly transitioned to "rock," it only makes sense that there would be a book dedicated to the groundbreaking album released by the biggest band of them all at the tail end of that year. In this new book (with a rather unwieldy title), author John Kruth aims to delve into the Beatles' first masterpiece in terms of both songwriting and production, placing it in the context of its time as well as detailing the aftereffects of its impact to the present day.

***special thanks to Wes at Backbeat Books for sending a copy of the book to review!***

Upon starting the book and noticing that it was two hundred pages, I was a bit skeptical as to how the author was going to fill it all up talking about a single album and its two associated non-album singles ("Day Tripper" and "We Can Work it Out") that clock in at less than an hour total. The first couple of chapters were of a personal nature, with the author describing his childhood and how he got into the Beatles, as well as what was happening in the 1960s around him. However, it didn't really make a lot of sense as he was describing 1960s America which was across the pond from London where the Beatles were living and working. This US/UK dichotomy ended up being one of the most confusing and frustrating things about the book...the author used both the original UK Parlophone edition of the Beatles albums (which is how the band always intended them) as well as the bastardized Capitol US versions interchangeably. For seasoned Beatles fans such as myself it was an annoyance, but I could see how a more casual fan would be thrown off by this.

In fact, this is but one of the many small annoyances I had with this book that made it a frustrating and unsatisfying read overall. The author's writing style was not to my particular liking, coming off a bit too youthful and somewhat clunky. There were some typos and grammatical errors throughout the book, although I'll chalk those up to editors rather than the author himself.  The general layout of the book after the personal introduction consisted of a couple of chapters setting up the recording and release of Rubber Soul, followed by chapters dedicated to each song. It got a bit confusing, however, in that the author included the songs from the American version of the album (arguably the only time a Capitol-altered version of a Beatles album didn't ruin it, and according to many fans, actually improved it) as well as the British version. This means that many songs from the UK Help! album are discussed, which in my opinion doesn't really make sense since those songs were written and recorded six or more months before Rubber Soul (with the exception of "Wait," written and initially recorded during the Help! sessions but not finished or released until Rubber Soul). The end of each chapter then includes a short section called "Rubber Covers" detailing notable cover versions of the particular song discussed. Most chapters include some basic session info for each song as well as the inspiration behind each song, although there was nothing new for obsessive Beatles fans and much of the source material and quoted passages were instantly recognizable as being from various books or the Anthology. There were also a lot of factual inaccuracies throughout, although how many were due to the author's ignorance as opposed to his clunky writing style I can't say. One glaring instance is where he mentions how very shortly after John met Yoko in late 1966, they recorded the infamous Two Virgins album and became a couple, leading to John abandoning his wife Cynthia and son Julian, which actually didn't happen until almost two years later. Now, it's very possible that the author is well aware of this (and he should be...it's incredibly well documented) but the way the passage is written makes it seem as though it happened mere weeks after their initial meeting. There are many sections of the book like this which became increasingly frustrating to read. Whether they were because of Kruth's lack of knowledge or his confusing writing style, either reason is unacceptable and, in my opinion, should've been corrected at the editing stage.

I had more problems with this book that I'd like to bring up, too. First, the background chapters on the 1960s and Beatles influences ended up feeling more like a general history of the decade (and of Bob Dylan in particular). While I get what the author was trying to do here and readily acknowledge the huge influence Dylan had on the Beatles (and John in particular), it began to distract from the point of the book and dragged on far too long. Second, the "Rubber Covers" sections didn't really add anything interesting to the chapters and in many cases became very repetitive as the same tribute albums and/or artists were mentioned over and over. Third, there seemed to be more of a focus on 1964 and 1966 in many of the chapters than on 1965, the year in which Rubber Soul was actually conceived and created. While I can at least see that the trends and experiences of 1964 factored into the creation of the album, 1966 and beyond had nothing to do with it. While the Beatles certainly built off of the achievement of Rubber Soul as they went into 1966 and beyond, the book didn't really need to expound as much on what they did after as it did, at least in my opinion. Finally, Kruth clearly has a lot of admiration for John Lennon, which shone through loud and clear, but while he also credited Paul McCartney for his talents, there were a lot of subtle and snide swipes at McCartney's personality, shortcomings, and his solo career. It got tiresome reading the same tired tripes about how John was the better of the two (as I've said repeatedly, they were BOTH essential) and really, in a book about an album smack dab in the middle of the Beatles' career, why is Paul's solo career being repeatedly brought up and picked at?

While a scholarly, thoroughly detailed look at Rubber Soul and its place in both the 1960s and 20th century history would be a welcome addition to the Beatles literature, This Bird is Flown isn't that book. To me, it felt exactly like I thought it would when I first started reading it: a short book about a single album that was padded with a lot of blandly-written extraneous material in order to justify its length as a book rather than a pamphlet. I will come right out and flatly say that I didn't enjoy this book and I didn't learn a single new thing from it. Perhaps being as fanatical and knowledgeable about the Beatles and their music as I am is the reason I feel this way, and I'll concede that this point may very well color my opinion. But unless one is a very casual or ignorant (in the literal, not pejorative sense of the word) Beatles fan, this book is far from essential.

MY RATING: 5/10

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BOOK REVIEW: You Had to Be There! The Rolling Stones Live 1962-69

The Rolling Stones are one of the longest-lived rock bands in history, having remained active for over fifty years and counting. In that time, they've played countless concerts all over the world, yet for most fans, their greatest work was during the 1960s. Starting off as a blues and R&B cover band in the clubs and coffee houses of London, the Stones played a grueling and punishing schedule of concerts to minuscule crowds in their early years, building up their following and becoming second only to the Beatles in the 1960s hierarchy of great bands. In You Had to Be There! The Rolling Stones Live 1962-69, author Richard Houghton offers a trip back to those heady years by telling the story of the Stones' 1960s concerts in the words of the fortunate fans who were there to witness them firsthand. 

***special thanks to the author for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

Soliciting memories from fans who were at any of the Stones' concerts in the 1960s, Houghton and his contributors tell the story of a ragtag group of five obsessive blues and R&B fans who started the decade playing dingy basement clubs to handfuls of teenagers and ended the decade as the second biggest rock band in the world. When I first heard of this book, I assumed it would be similar to another very good, if not flawed, book I've read and reviewed on the Beatles' UK tours. That book was enjoyable but suffered from being quite repetitive and devoid of charm after a while. However, as this Stones book got closer to being released, I began to think it might be quite different. This was most noticeable to me when my mum sent me a story from my parents' local newspaper in Massachusetts where Houghton was soliciting submissions from fans who had attended the Stones concert there in 1965. When I finally got my hands on the book and saw how the author had put the book together, I was delighted but still slightly hesitant. For each of the shows between 1962 and 1969, the story of the concerts was told entirely in the words of the fans who were there. What made me wary was the fear that the book would get repetitive the way the Beatles book did (that book became a real slog once I was halfway through it).

I'm happy to say that this wasn't the case at all with You Had to Be There...each entry is interesting and engaging and there are many reasons for this. When multiple people shared their memories about the same show, it was fascinating to see how similar or different their perceptions and experiences were. Reading about how the various concertgoers managed to get their tickets, got to the shows, met the Stones, and got home was a wonderful look back to a more innocent time when rock music and the concert business were both young and everyone was flying by the seat of their pants as the world changed around them at a rapid pace. Security was minimal, amplification was inadequate, prices were low by today's standards, and the bands were much more accessible. It was also amazing to read firsthand how quickly and profoundly it all changed...fans who attended a Stones show in 1964 mentioned how when they saw them just a year or two later the experience was different and in many cases, not as enjoyable. By the time the band got to the end of the decade, their tours were huge events and the small club and theater crowds they'd played to in earlier years gave way to faceless seas of humanity in arenas and stadiums. The innocence and simplicity of the earlier 1960s was now marred by restless crowds, police violence, drugs, groupies, cynicism, and money while the band became aloof and untouchable heroes to the masses. These are not new revelations, but somehow hearing it from the perspective of all of those were were there makes it more vivid and sharpens its impact.

Adding to the charm of the book are the many photos accompanying the entries of the contributors, with most pictures being representative of how they and the fashions looked back then. There is also a large section in the middle with fan photos of various concerts and meetings with members of the Stones throughout the 1960s. It's quite something to read about someone in their 60s or 70s looking back on something that happened to them when they were a teenager, especially when they mention how much they've seen the world around them change in the years since. Even better are the instances when fans mention that they went to the concert with their boyfriend or girlfriend who they then married and are still married to. It's really touching to read about couples who went together as teens and are still together fifty years later...some of these entries even have photos of the couples now and then, which is heartwarming and adds a more human touch to their story. Overall, You Had to Be There is a real time capsule that takes the reader back in time to those heady days and tracks the rapid pace of the decades evolution through the eyes of the everyday people who experienced their little bit of rock history. If I have any complaint, it's only that I would have liked to have seen more contributions from fans who attended shows on the 1969 American tour, including Altamont, as the book ends with the Stones' show at Hyde Park in July 1969. Thinking about it, though, I can understand why the author may have stopped here as Hyde Park was the first show the band played in the immediate aftermath of Brian Jones' death and in way, it was the full-stop end of their 1960s incarnation. However, the 1969 tour was their first that was an actual event and the Altamont show is widely seen as what killed the 1960s dream, so those could have been a nice way to bookend the decade for the Rolling Stones. Still, this is a small quibble of mine and as I said, the more I think about it the more I understand why Houghton ended the book at Hyde Park...it was the end of an era and the first chapter in the Stones' career. 

In closing, while not offering any new revelations in terms of the inner workings of the Stones or their music, this is still definitely a book that any fan of the band would enjoy. Even those who are more a fan of the 1960s and its music in general and perhaps not dedicated Stones fans would have a good time taking a trip back to those years and reading about the experiences from the lucky fans who were there to live through it firsthand.

MY RATING: 9/10

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BOOK REVIEW: The Who: The Official History

2015 marks the year that The Who are celebrating their 50th anniversary. I disagree with this classification for a couple of reasons, mainly because A) 1964 was the year in which they solidified their lineup of Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle, and Moon and released their first single, "I Can't Explain," and B) they really haven't been The Who since Keith Moon died in September 1978. However, as it's their band, it's their choice as to when they want to celebrate their anniversary.  In any event, as one of my favorite bands of all time and one of the most influential bands in history, it was with great excitement that I looked forward to the publication of this official history, especially as it promised to have input from the two surviving members of the band, Pete and Roger. Written by Ben Marshall, upon receiving this attractive book and seeing the eye-catching cover dripping with classic Who iconography, I proceeded to tear into it to see how the story of this fantastic band, this band that has meant so much to my life and the lives of countless others, would be told from an official perspective.

***special thanks to Leslie at Harper Collins for sending a copy of the book to review!***

The introduction of the book hints that, while written by Marshall, there will also be heavy input from Roger and Pete. Of course, upon reading this I was looking forward to the insight they could offer, but it became apparent rather quickly that in actuality there would only be photo captions written by Pete and for all intents and purposes, nothing from Roger, which was very disappointing and gave the book a whiff of being a bit of a half-hearted/cash-in. How could this be an official history with such minimal input from the last two remaining members of the Who? Pete's captions, as would be expected, are quirky, funny, honest, sarcastic, and unmistakably Townshend. The downside is that, the further I got into the book,  the more they served as constant reminders of how more (much more) of his input would have enhanced the book. Ben Marshall starts the Who history (Whostory?) with the backdrop of WWII Britain and the birth of the four members at the tail end of the war (or in Pete and Keith's cases, after the war ended). Inserted in this section were sidebars on life in the post-war austerity period in the UK as well as the rise of Teddy Boy subculture and rock and roll. Sidebars such as these appeared throughout the book and become more and more intrusive and eventually threatened to overwhelm the Who's story, but I'll elaborate on that more later. From here, the author goes through their various pre-Who bands and how they came together until the line-up was completed in early 1964 with the arrival of Keith Moon. The remainder of the chapters are split into eras, focusing on their first album and singles during their Mod period, their Pop Art period of 1966-1968, Tommy in 1969-1970, their period as a top act in 1971-1974, and the remainder of their career with Keith until his death in 1978. This rightly takes up the bulk of the book, with the balance dedicated quite briskly to their attempt at carrying on post-Keith from 1979-1982 and the subsequent reunion tours of 1996-present.

When going through the book, I kept feeling like it wasn't meeting my expectations as to what an "official history" should be but that eventually something I'd hit upon something that would rectify this. However, I kept reading and after finishing the book I couldn't help but think that this book was a real disappointment and, worse than that, a huge missed opportunity. There are several reasons I feel this way. First and foremost, Ben Marshall's written history offers little to no new insight or information about the band or their history. Much of the narrative is quoted verbatim from the Who's remastered CD liner notes and various documentaries and previous books that will be well known and instantly recognizable to any of my fellow hardcore Who fanatics. There were also numerous typos/grammatical errors, as well as several flat-out inaccuracies. These ranged from what I'm assuming are honest errors such as calling the Who's album from 1978, Who Are You, Who's Next (which came out in 1971) by mistake, to the author constantly messing up the name of their recent documentary Amazing Journey, which got to be very irritating. The sidebars, which grew to be almost as long as the chapters themselves, were sometimes fun and informative (such as the ones on Mods and Teddy Boys), but eventually became too long and off-topic, detracting from the central story of the Who. One of them was a long treatise on the history of the hippie subculture; while I understand this happened during the Who's career in the 1960s, the Who were one of the few bands of the era who, apart from dabbling in some florid clothing and LSD, were never remotely close to being a hippie/psychedelic band either in terms of their sound or attitudes, and as such were set apart from the entire movement. There were also some long sidebars on the Mods vs. Rockers fights of 1964 (which made sense as Pete wrote about these on the Quadrophenia album) and a heartwarming but unnecessary (at least in my opinion) vignette about a former London punk drummer telling the story of his brother watching the Who rehearse a few times in the mid-1960s. In all honesty, the book ran out of steam, and quickly, after the chapter-long tribute to Keith Moon. Granted, from that point onward I don't consider the band to really have been the Who, but in my mind if this is to truly be a definitive official history, there should have been more detail on the post-Keith years. There was very little to nothing, for instance, on the Cincinnati incident of 1979, the 1996 Hyde Park Quadrophenia reunion, or their subsequent tours in the 2000s. Apart from a chapter-long tribute to John Entwistle, this final section of the book seemed unnecessary and hurried, and for a band who has desperately tried to convince their fans and themselves that the years after 1978 (and especially after 1982) have been just as vital and essential a part of their history as the 1964-1978 period, it seemed half-assed. Finally, there were far too few picture captions by Pete and far too little input from him throughout the entire book...combined with their being zero input or insight from Roger, it seems a little specious, at least to me, to call this an official history and imply on the cover that it's Roger and Pete telling their story when really, it isn't. This may be an officially sanctioned history of the Who, but it certainly isn't their version of, say, the Beatles' Anthology book which was truly 100% in their own words. A band as important, influential, and revered as the Who deserves better as the official word on their own career.

For all of their visceral, reckless, and aggressive energy, The Who were always one of the most cerebral, reflective, and introspective bands who also were the first (and in my mind, still the best) to reflect back at their audience who they really were. Given what Pete's autobiography was like and what the best of their music offers, it was only natural that I would assume that the official history of the band would embody all of these qualities. However, I have to conclude that this book is a major disappointment and a real missed opportunity to tell their history in their own words, especially as it could have been done really well in a way only Pete and Roger could do. This book is more accurately a band history written by an outside author with minimal input from the two surviving members. Yes, there are some great photographs throughout the book, several that were even new to me, but the actual story, i.e. the words, were almost inconsequential and will offer nothing to any dedicated Wholigan. Is this a book hardcore Who fans should have? Yes, it probably is, but at the same time it's not one they need to have. For a band who has given so much to their fans, and who in turn have demanded so much from their fans in return, the incongruity with respect to this book is jarring. The end result is disappointing, especially if this ends up being the final official word from Roger and Pete on The Who.

*THIS* is what the Who were all about. Crank up the volume and enjoy!

MY RATING: 6/10

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Who Has an Anniversary

Apart from the years 1964-1978, this year is shaping up to be a good one for fans of The Who. The band is celebrating their 50th anniversary (which they date from the release of their first album in 1965...I consider last year to be their 50th as 1964 is when the band's line-up was solidified and their first single, "I Can't Explain," was released) with a pair of new hardbound books. These both have just been released and I got them in right before I left for China a couple of weeks ago. The book on the left is the officially sanctioned history of the band as told by the two surviving members, Pete and Roger. The book on the right is another one published by well-known author Mat Snow. Both are handsome volumes full of black-and-white and color photos on nice glossy paper. For any of my fellow Who fanatics, stay tuned as I will be reviewing these books for the site as soon as I can get to them. Coupled with the rumored released of a new career-spanning box set at the end of the year, this is shaping up to be a great year for fans of this legendary band.

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Interview with Ray Foulk & Caroline Foulk, authors of When the World Came to the Isle of Wight: Stealing Dylan From Woodstock

Author Ray Foulk

Author Caroline Foulk

Today I'm very pleased and very excited to bring you the following interview with Ray and Caroline Foulk, authors of the fantastic new book When the World Came to the Isle of Wight, Volume 1: Stealing Dylan From Woodstock. I reviewed the book earlier this year and Ray and Caroline were kind enough to answer my questions regarding the second Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, what is was like booking Bob Dylan for the festival, and much, much more. Before we begin, how about a little background on the authors?

Ray Foulk, now based in Oxford, has fostered many passions since his early days as a promoter. After the dizzy heights of the Isle of Wight Festivals and stadium events in London, the Foulk brothers were head-hunted by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation to help plan the leisure content of their new city. Through this, Ray brought the inventor/scientist/designer Buckminster Fuller to the project, embraced his environmentalism, and eventually trained as an architect himself at the University of Cambridge. Combining design, education, and promotion he spent much of the nineties and noughties as an environmental campaigner, and led the ambitious in-schools project, Blue Planet Day, rekindling the satisfaction, and more, that the festivals had brought to his youth. Recent years have been dominated by environmental architecture and writing.

Caroline Foulk has worked with her father, Ray, for many years, researching, writing, and co-promoting the schools environmental project, Blue Plant Day. Recently, together they have completed a screenplay for the cinema about the invention of modern art. Caroline trained and worked as a teacher and lives in Oxford with her husband and three children.

RNRChemist: First off, can you give us a bit of background on you? How did you come to settle on the Isle of Wight? What year was that and what were the circumstances? How did you like living there?

RF: After the relatively sudden death of my father in 1956 it was no longer practical for my mother to keep up a large house in Derbyshire with 5 young children to bring up. We moved to the Island because my Uncle already had property there. Also my aging grandmother lived there. It suited Uncle Ronald to encourage Mother to move.We were disappointed in some respects with the island, especially the house we relocated to, which was parochial and small compared to the amazing mansion house we left behind. Sutton Rock had seemed such a marvel to my father’s family who had lived for generations as coal miners. I think we had an overall general feeling of immense loss, but the seaside was a plus.

RNRChemist: What was the impetus for you and your brothers to decide to stage the first festival in 1968? Why did you decide to do that?

RF: We put on the first IOW festival because my brother Ronnie got involved in raising funds for a local charity – IWISPA, whose remit was to raise money for an indoor swimming pool for the IOW.

RNRChemist: That first festival seems to be the forgotten one of the three you promoted...looking back on it, what are your thoughts on it?

RF:  The first festival seems almost a little embarrassing in retrospect. Although it was put on with a degree of professionalism, the stubble field was painful to sit on and we made wild claims about the national significance of the event, for instance we put it about that the Beatles would attend, (little did we know that they really would come the following year). We were disappointed that only about 10,000 attended. My brother Bill had assured us of the importance of Jefferson Airplane, Arthur Brown and the various underground bands. The island felt like a hopeless place for events.

RNRChemist: What did you have to go through to get Jefferson Airplane to headline that first one? How was their performance?

RF:  My brother Ronnie had to keep plugging away for Jefferson Airplane. He was casting around for any big names really. He had little knowledge of the contemporary scene and was turned down many times. He had no track record as a promoter and had to rely on his abilities as a salesman to finally convince the Clayman Agency that we were really serious contenders able to host an event worthy of an international band like Jefferson Airplane.

When it came to playing the Airplane were on form. Although it was freezing cold they brought rock genius into the night and lifted everybody’s spirits. They made everything seem worthwhile even though their light show was constrained by the dusty conditions.

RNRChemist: When you decided to plan the festival for the following year, what sort of things did you feel you needed to improve upon from 1968?

RF:  The IOW festival ‘mark one’ had seemed makeshift in many ways. We definitely wanted to make our festival-goers more welcome and comfortable – to go bigger and better in every way. It was important that we found a decent grassy site with proper facilities. Probably the biggest difference was that we styled it a ‘Camping festival’, which was unusual at this time. Because we were on an island we wanted people to have enough time to travel. Trench type toilets were replaced by cubicles and we appointed staff, often friends, to different departments overseeing every aspect of festival necessities. Everything was more designed from the tickets, to the programmes, posters etc. to the stage. We tried to address everything with excellence.

RNRChemist: Why Dylan? What made him your top choice as headliner for the second festival? Did you think you had a realistic shot at booking him? Was it more a "shoot for the moon" type thing?

RF:  It was obvious that we needed the biggest names to draw people across the water. Jefferson Airplane hadn’t been able to do this – the task of finding somebody with enough clout seemed daunting. Dylan really was the holy grail in 1969, he had acquired a god-like status due to his influence upon a whole generation. He was more than an ordinary musician, whether he liked it or not.

RNRChemist: I'm assuming you were expecting to be turned down outright by Dylan's management when you first called? What was your reaction when they didn't immediately say "no?"

RF:  I don’t think we set out believing that we had a chance to get Dylan. The fact that Dylan’s management didn’t dismiss us out of hand was a green light to us. We resorted to scheming over what might make the difference, bearing in mind that we had very few resources at all.

RNRChemist: Can you describe in more detail what the process was like for dealing with Block and Grossman as you warmed Bob up to the idea of coming to the island?

RF:  We had less dealings with Al Grossman than with Bert Block owing to the demise of the Dylan-Grossman contract. Dylan was in the process of distancing himself from Grossman. During my visit to New York for the signing when I dined with Grossman and the lawyers almost immediately at a Chinese restaurant (something I’d never experienced before). And after the signing when we visit Grossman’s flat at Gramercy Park. It was there that Al skinned up a joint to celebrate the deal (to my alarm). Al was like a presence but not so much involved. He came to the festival with Michael Lang and seemed more interested in seeing the Who than Dylan.

 I mostly dealt with Grossman’ partner, Bert Block. We developed a good rapport, over the phone initially.  Sometimes Bert wrong-footed me. When he said ‘bring the dollars’ (in preparation for my trip to meet Dylan) I really had to think about what he meant. I looked after him whenever he visited the Island. I made it my mission to make sure Bert was okay and therefore Dylan was okay. Bert seemed a really good old timer, kind of avuncular, though he probably wasn’t that old in reality. I recall I scared Bert a couple of times with my driving, but he always had faith in our abilities as promoters. As for the process of dealing with Block and Grossman it was pretty smooth, apart from Rikki Farr’s little indiscretion. They were decent, friendly and business-like. We knew we had to present ourselves in a business-like way at all times, especially in order to surmount our youthfulness and it paid off.  I had too much to think about to be too overawed by their stature as managers.

RNRChemist: How was it traveling to New York to meet with Dylan and his management? Can you describe how that whole trip went?

RF:  Travelling to New York was a lot of fun. I hadn’t been abroad before of course. Once I had my passport, visa and the guarantees for at least most of the performance fees I could almost sit back and enjoy the ride. A downside was Rikki and his antics. He was a loose cannon and wont to step in claiming he was the organiser, which he patently wasn’t, as well as louse things up, but I had the benefit of his demeanour as a bonafide show producer. We needed to be a convincing duo and Rikki certainly helped.

RNRChemist: After you got Bob, how did you guys feel? I'm guessing it was relief mixed with the immediate pressure of "now how are we gonna make sure it all goes smoothly?

RF:  Securing Dylan was unbelievable but the time period (5 weeks) between him signing and the festival itself was so short that there was really no time to do anything but get organised as rapidly as possible. Ticket sales were the priority. We had to raise enough cash to meet the contracts and build a city. But it wasn’t like a relief it was more euphoric than that. 

RNRChemist: Why choose Dylan? Why not the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, someone else? What about Bob made you want to go for him above all others?

RF:  Dylan was a way bigger draw than the Stones or Hendrix at this point. The Beatles would have measured up to Dylan but they were in the process of their break up and hadn’t played live in eons.  Elvis’s name even came up, but we couldn’t imagine him playing in a field.  We were after one of the big three. Dylan was the only viable option. It’s easy to underestimate how big Dylan was at this time.

RNRChemist: You mention that you and your brothers weren't promoters, you were businessman...how did that gibe with trying to put on these massive festivals?

RF:  Although we were businessmen rather than promoters I was pretty heavily into some of the issues of the time and was active with the IOW CND and labour party. In fact I set up a CND group in the West Wight. So although I was making a living in business my heart was with the counterculture.  The same is true of my brother Bill who was a student at the Royal College of Art. It’s true that my musical education was lacking at the time of the first festival. Bill was easily able to point us in the right direction groups-wise. But it suited us well to have a business-like approach to the festivals.  The organisation of the two large events was very complementary from the viewpoint of those that mattered, ie. the health authorities, police and bulk of the audience. It just wouldn’t have been possible to host such large numbers without a budget, plan, capable staff and their departments, at least not without creating a disaster area.

RNRChemist: You mention that you were a late convert to Dylan and weren't necessarily a huge rock fan at the time...what were your listening habits like in the 1960s? Did they change after putting on these three festivals?

RF:  My musical taste changed dramatically. Above all I persisted with Dylan and soon became a genuine fan. We were fully incentivized to get familiar with as much current music as we could find the time to listen to it. It was soon flooding in too with demos coming at us from all quarters. Before this time I was a Johnny Cash fan, I liked the Beatles, trad jazz and knew about (by then) old hat stars like Adam Faith and Billy Fury.

RNRChemist: Can you give us a little flavor into how it was organizing this massive festival out of your house, and with 1960s technology to boot! I'd bet most young people today couldn't even imagine how much harder it was than it would be now.

RF:  In some ways organising the massive Dylan festival was easier than it might be nowadays. We had less technology available, but those were the days when the fixed line telephone really worked. People tended to answer reliably and it was easier to make contact even with celebrities. In the case of going above people’s head a person-to-person call would often do the trick. Social media nowadays can take up a lot of time and work. Being restricted to largely paper publications, telephone, radio and television for advertising actually meant concentrating on the job would have been easier in some ways. We employed messengers to deal with some of tasks now taken care of by email and text. Conditions at Mother’s house were hardly consistent with a world-class rock festival but we did make use of a suite of rooms on the upper floor, which became workable office space. Of course dining tables doubled as desks etc. as far as furniture was concerned. Mother was fairly self-contained in a separate wing of the house, but would help on occasion by answering international phone calls in the middle of the night, or providing voluminous quantities of good home cooked food for whoever might be staying.

RNRChemist: What were some of the most difficult parts of the entire festival for you in terms of planning and execution?

RF:  Raising funds was always the most problematic planning issue from the moment that Dylan agreed to sign especially in the early stages when potential backers just really wouldn’t believe that an event headed up by Dylan would happen. Without funds nothing could happen smoothly, but once Dylan had signed of course tickets were selling like lightening, which freed us up to concentrate on other vital matters like building the arena and finding Dylan and co. places to stay. One of the hairiest moments was when Dylan disembarked from the QUEII following his son‘s accident on board. Everything was riding on Dylan’s appearance. We suddenly realised how vulnerable we were.

RNRChemist: What was it like meeting the Beatles and other titans of the music world in 1969?

RF:  It was quite surreal meeting famous people like the Beatles and other rock titans but to be honest I wasn’t interested in hanging around such people too much. There were plenty of others ready to do that. We were so consumed by the operation at hand that you could only take it in your stride. We were there to do a job and we had to concentrate hard on the necessities of keeping the thing together.

RNRChemist: What was Dylan like as a person? How about George Harrison? The other Beatles? The Who? Other rock musicians you met at the festival?

RF:  My first impression of Dylan was that he was quite shy, probably shyer than me even. He was very ordinary, a regular down to earth kind of guy, polite and well spoken. He was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and I suppose he appeared smaller than I expected, not that he is especially small but anyone with that big a name you kind of imagine to be larger.

George had all eyes for Dylan and clearly set about resuming the relationship he had been building with him after he had visited the Dylan’s home some months before. I enjoyed very much standing there and listening to them harmonizing beautifully to some Everly Brothers hits. That was a truly special moment, like a private concert.

The Beatles were very charming and seemed relaxed either hanging out at the farmhouse or backstage. They were keen on talking between themselves and were apologetic, saying that they didn’t get much chance to talk shop. John and Yoko were quite clingy as I remember.

The Who? We developed a good relationship with them which continued after the 1969 and 1970 festivals with Rock at the Oval in 1971. It has been said that the Isle of Wight gigs were the events of the Who’s career, which I’d be inclined to agree with. They could only have been pleased by their performance, reception, everything worked like a dream for them.

RNRChemist: What was your relationship like with your two brothers, Ronnie and Bill? How about with Rikki Farr? He certainly seemed to have had a knack for saying the wrong thing at a most inopportune time!

RF:  The relationship between my brother Ronnie and I had always been close and inevitably under the circumstances we pulled together. Ronnie is a visionary. I would endeavour to bring in to reality whatever the latest idea was. We worked well as a team and developed ideas together around the clock. Our brother Bill was younger and away at the Royal College of Art some of the time. He was a very important advisor to key decisions such as what acts to go for, what type of festival we were putting on aside from his general duties on site and stage design.

Rikki was a mixed blessing. He was loud, gregarious and amiable. We had a good working relationship with him though he could be unruly. He would breeze in from his Portsmouth menswear shop as something of a VIP but he really wasn’t around on the Island that much. Most of his input came to the fore at the festival itself. He could be a liability in terms of saying the wrong thing, at other times he was able to pull us out of a difficult spot and had valuable experience to add to our credibility.  It was said that he took after his boxer father using his mouth like other people use their fists!

RNRChemist: How did you feel about things heading into the moment when the festival was actually about to start? Confident? Nervous? Terrified? All of the above?

RF:  There were so many balls to keep in the air there was barely time to think about whether we felt nervous or terrified.  In reality there were moments of feeling overawed by the event – like the first time stepping on to the stage at Woodside Bay and seeing that immense crowd – that was quite something.

RNRChemist: Who were your favorite acts from the entire weekend?

RF:  Dylan was the favourite act for me that weekend. It was only during his set that I really sat down in the wings and listened without distraction. The Bonzo Dog Band were certainly amusing as I recall, The Band were stunning and Gary Farr did well. There were many great moments.  Ronnie was really excited about the Who, though sadly he heard them only from a great distance away.

RNRChemist: What was it like to see a crowd that size? How do you remember them? Overall, were they well behaved?

RF: Generally the crowd was well behaved (with certain exceptions like towards Mr and Mrs Thackham, with their bungalow adjacent to the stage, or suffered a minor insult). We never expected otherwise. In fact there was earnestness in the demeanour of most folks, like they really came to hear the music – that was what they were there for.  Generally nobody stood up during the acts. Etiquette was that you would sit and refrain from obscuring the view of your brother or sister in front of you. Otherwise you might find yourself pelted with coke cans.

RNRChemist: What was going through your head when the Band were delayed for a couple of hours and Dylan was getting antsy?

RF: We were not overly worried about the delay to see Dylan. It wasn’t as if the crowd was going anywhere and 10pm would have been a rather early finish. Of course it did cut out the likelihood of Dylan playing on longer, which would have been a bonus and certainly knocked out the possibility of a jam with the Beatles or Stones. Of course that was never really going to happen anyway. We were most aware of the discomfort and general scrimmaging in the press arena. We didn’t really intrude on Dylan during his preparations so we weren’t really too aware of his level of discomfort.

RNRChemist: Dylan's set: your thoughts? How do you think it went down then, and how do you feel about now with hindsight (and being able to listen to it in full via his recent release of it)?

RF:  I enjoyed Dylan’s set immensely. Sure he was different.  He sounded for the first time like he could really sing well. It was a well-constructed set, the Band were perfect in sync with what he was doing.  There were quiet moments and raucous moments. It was great music. The digital release of recent times bears out the quality of the gig and it is a joy to hear it in its remastered form. The audience listened attentively rather than reacted in raptures and calls for encores continued for 20 minutes. There is no doubt that he was well received. For all those expecting the wired rock poet of 1966 they would have been disappointed. Dylan had leapt ahead in with his stage persona. Many were left behind wondering where the old Dylan was.

RNRChemist: How accurately (or not) do you feel the press covered Dylan's set, as well as the whole festival, afterward? It certainly seemed that both you and Bob weren't too keen on what was printed!

RF:  Positive press reports were widespread. There was negativity expressed afterwards in certain quarters of the UK gutter press regarding Dylan cutting short his set - which of course was not true, but perhaps this might have been a reaction to the pre-festival hype predicting a super-jam with the Stones and the Beatles. Others were casting around for something to write – a peaceful trouble-free festival was really not exciting enough. The negatives were easily outweighed by the positives, but it was significantly damaging to Dylan for him to reflect uneasily on playing in the UK afterwards although initially he had seemed delighted with the event. Comments were as varied as George Harrison’s words reported in the Daily Mirror ‘I could go on talking about Dylan for eight hours. He’s unlimited in what he’s doing…’ to the Daily Sketch’s ‘Dylan cuts it short after midnight flop’ For us the flimsy complaints were irritating to say the least but by and large we were very happy. Reporting in general ranged from generally accurate to accounts laden with descriptions of debauchery and depravity, some of which could be quite funny.

RNRChemist: After the festival, can you describe how you felt? How did you think things went?

RF:  After the festival and the initial exhaustion, we felt elated combined with a huge sense of relief for having pulled it off. We were astonished at how well it had gone really. We were completely inspired to repeat the event, if not to surpass it.

RNRChemist: What was the festival site like after everyone left? How long did it take to clean up and return to normal?

RF:  The festival site was awash with rubbish as far as the eye could see. As you might expect, but there was no permanent damage other than minor damage to the catering tent, which had been used as a vantage point by Bob-spotters. It took three or four weeks to restore the site to its former condition.

RNRChemist: Any folks in particular that you want to single out as being particularly helpful throughout the whole festival, from planning to execution to wrap-up?

RF:  There are certain individuals who were particularly helpful throughout the festival. Turner Smith on site was a powerhouse of a man, strapping and strong and willing to take on any task. He had good knowledge of construction and general engineering matters. Electrician Harry Garrood was similarly around from the beginning. He was very skilled and kept with us. Another older gent Dr Quantrill was willing to stick his neck out for us in influencing the authorities to have faith in us and to dismiss scurrilous health scares as ridiculous.

RNRChemist: What was the local reaction before, during, and after the festival?
RF:  Local reaction to the oncoming festival was not initially as great as you might think. In fact a large number of Isle of Wight residents simply had no time to really contemplate what was actually arriving on the Island. Obviously there was great excitement among the youngsters. Some of this was evidenced on site when youths would come by and offer to do any job, sometimes without pay. Older people expressed dismay at the prospect of the Island being flooded with festivalgoers – perhaps our slogan ‘Help Bob Dylan Sink the Isle of Wight’ didn’t help there. During the festival itself there were stresses on certain resources for instance provisions in local shops -but others saw the festival as a great opportunity and set out their stalls, literally!  The reaction afterwards was similarly mixed. On the whole young people were very much in favour of the festival while those of the older generation who objected were wild with antagonism and would express their hostility in extreme terms.

RNRChemist: Why did you decide to jump right into planning the next one? How much time did you take to relax and bask in the afterglow of the '69 festival before starting to plan for '70?

RF:  After just a few days or weeks of reflection, recuperation and taking stock our thoughts gravitated towards another festival. It was inevitable. There was no question of basking in an afterglow for very long. There was just too much to do if we were to repeat the festival only go one better.

RNRChemist: What's your overarching memory of that year and what you and your colleagues accomplished with the 1969 Isle of Wight festival?

RF:  It was a staggering realisation to have accomplished what we had set out to do. It was life changing. It felt like we could do anything or that anything was possible, once the finance was organised.

RNRChemist: Ray and Caroline, thank you so much for your time and insight. You've got me looking forward to volume two even more and I hope we can continue our discussion after that book is published. In the meantime, to my readers, I can't recommend Stealing Dylan From Woodstock enough...if you're a fan of the era and/or any of the acts that played the IOW in 1969, you'll definitely enjoy reading about how it all came together. Britain's answer to Woodstock was bigger and in many ways better, and incredibly they topped it the following year, but the story of how that happened will have to wait for volume two...

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Interview with Paul "Smiler" Anderson, author of Mods: The New Religion

Author Paul Anderson

The Rock and Roll Chemist is proud to bring you the following interview with author Paul "Smiler" Anderson. Paul is the author of the excellent book Mods: The New Religion which I reviewed earlier this year. For anyone interested in Mod style and culture and music, or just 1960s Britain in general, it's a must-read. Paul 'Smiler' Anderson has been involved with DJ'ing on the Mod scene for over 30 years and has been writing about it via fanzines, record sleeve notes and books for the same amount of time. He has DJ'd at many of the major Mod nights and has DJ'd at Mod rallies and events, both in the UK and Europe, since the 1980s. In 2011 he wrote and came up with the concept of the biggest ever exhibition of 1960s Mod artfacts, which alongside Damian Jones, he set up at Reading Museum entitled 'Reading Steady Go!' In 2009 he co-wrote "Circles - The Strange Story of The Fleur De Lys" about the little known 60's Mod band. in 2014 "Mods: The New Religion" was published and he is currently working on a new book entitled "Mod Art" due for release next year. Paul was kind enough to answer my many questions about his great book and his views on Mod culture. Enjoy!

RNRChemist: Hi Paul, thanks for speaking with me...I'm really excited to have the opportunity! Let's get started: can you tell us little bit about yourself?

PA: I’m 50 years old and I live in Reading in Berkshire which is approximately 40 miles from London. I  live with my wife Lorraine and my son is 4 later this year. I’ve been into Mod since 1979.

RNRChemist: How did you first get into Mod culture?

PA: I became involved in the Mod scene around September 1979 after watching it evolve from afar. At first the entry point was through the revival bands such as the Jam, Secret Affair, The Chords etc. Fashion-wise I hadn’t a clue: it was all white, socks, loafers and a parka. In 1983 I started work as a postman, and by then lots of the older original revival Mods were getting more into being scooter boys. In other words, their interest revolved around their scooters so clothes were not that important and their music choices changed. To me, being a Mod was always about clothes first, music second, and although I always have owned scooters, they really aren’t a necessity. At work I had to wear a uniform so I really appreciated dressing up in my leisure time, which I guess is the paradox to businessmen wearing jeans and sports wear in their free time. By 1984 locally most Mods had evolved into the scooter scene whilst I went in search of my Mod Nirvana which I found in London. I discovered clubs like The Phoenix and Sneakers which were full of young kids wearing tailor made suits and 60s vintage clothes dancing to original R&B, soul, ska, beat and jazz. I found my Mod heaven and that dictated my direction from then on. I was always in search of elusive vintage shirts by Brooks Brothers, Jaytex, Ben Sherman, Brutus, Austins, Jon Wood, Harry Fenton or Arnold Palmer. If you couldn’t get vintage you’d find a good shirt maker such as Katy Stevens who was based at 7 Archer Street in Soho at the time. She’d made shirts for The Beatles and The Small Faces in the 60s and was the best. Suits and trousers were either vintage or tailor made. We had a guy called Charlie Antoniou who had a tiny room above a shop in Carnaby Street. Beautiful mohair masterpieces in 3 or 4 buttons, or maybe double-breasted. You avoided the mass Mod market shops that were dotted along Carnaby Street and were cheap quality pale imitations. The street fashion by 1984 was Frankie says T shirts, linen one button ‘Miami Vice jackets’ or Casual gear such as Pringle, Lyle &Scott etc paired with Farrah slacks. Youth tribes from the period included ‘Boneheads’ (Skinheads racist ancestor), Punks, Psychobillies, Rockabillies, New Romantics, Casuals, Rockers, and Scooter Boys. Most hated us Mods but in a way it felt great to be involved in such an underground movement.

RNRChemist: What was it about being the Mod scene that interested and appealed to you?

PA: As above really. I had no interest in the present day fashions, really.

RNRChemist: How long did you spend researching and writing this book?

PA: The book took around five years to write and was at the publishers for two years before it was released! I did most of it the old fashioned way, recording interviews on a tape recorder, writing it out in ink, editing and typing it up. Most contacts were gained by getting phone numbers and taking a chance.

RNRChemist: What inspired you to write the book?

PA: I’d always written fanzines in the 1980s and I’d never actually read a book that I thought had done the original scene justice. Lots lean towards the Northern Soul route which really doesn’t interest me that much.

RNRChemist: Why do you think the time was right for the movement to start when it did in the late 1950s/early 1960s?

PA: Britain was still recovering from the destruction of the Second World War. Rationing was coming to an end. Hire purchase was on the increase for working class people. National Service ended and youths wanted to distance themselves from the grime and misery that their parents and siblings lives had seemed to be full of.

RNRChemist: Why were the Mods so obsessed with finding authenticity in everything? In particular, with their music?

PA: Mods love one-upmanship, so what better way than to search out an obscure artist or song? To find a rare record on an even scarcer label is always nice.

RNRChemist: Regarding the drug use by the Mods, how prevalent was it and do you think it was as bad as the media made it out to be at the time?

PA: Yes, I think it was very prevalent...probably worse than what was actually reported!! Amphetamines were a huge part of the Mod experience.

RNRChemist: Besides allowing the kids to stay up all night raving it up, why do you think they were drawn to uppers rather than alcohol, pot, or psychedelics?

PA: You have to remember most clubs were held in unlicensed premises, so alcohol was pretty much out of the question. Besides which, a lot of Mods were kids of, say, 15-17 so they were too young to drink anyway. You also have to remember that it was only later in 1964 that the "illegal use of drugs" act was proposed. Prior to that the drugs taken could be slimming pills or pick-me-ups for anxiety. Psychedelics would not enter the scene until ’66 or ’67, really.

RNRChemist: A lot of detractors thought the Mod males were a bit effeminate for caring so much about their appearance, but most of those guys were tough bastards! Why were working class youth so clothes conscious?

PA: The working classes have always liked to dress up, even back in the days of the "Sunday best" suit. You may be poor, but if you can dress up, the less people will judge you.

RNRChemist: The same goes for scooters. What was the appeal? I'm guessing it was some combination of getting around the city easily and appropriating another fashion from the continent?

PA: Yes, it was a glamour aspect combined with a relatively cheap form of transport for freedom. Plus, you could personalise them, and everything engine wise was covered up unlike the dirty, greasy motorbikes of the period.

RNRChemist: The entire movement seemed to have a live fast/live for today mentality...not many of the kids seemed to care to save their money; as soon as they earned it they seemed to spend it on clothes, scooters, records, pills, and going out. Was this simply a rebellion against the austerity and scrimping and saving they'd all known growing up in the 1950s?

PA: You have to remember that the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 almost saw the end of the world. A lot of youngsters wondered if there was much point in saving. They embraced the feeling of moving forward, but living for the moment at the same time. Plus you have to remember they’d grown up in the bomb sites and the grey days of rationing. This mixed with new fashions, music and inventions...why wouldn’t they want a bit of glamour?

RNRChemist: How do you view the whole Mods vs. Rockers thing? Was it a legitimate rivalry or was it trumped up and exaggerated by the media?

PA: A mixture really, yeah, it could be bad but in most cases Rockers lived in the country or the Home Counties. The press stirred it up for sure but in reality the worst enemy of Mods was other Mods. This being either young Mods coming up trying to gain reputations or the usual rival territories such as East London versus South London.

RNRChemist: In your opinion when did the original wave of Mod start to die out? Why do you think it did?

PA: Mod was constantly evolving. The late 50s Mods, well some may have even been gone by ’61 or ’62. The riots in '64 thrust Mod into the spotlight and caused many to disappear. Mod’s last true stand was probably over by ’66 and by ’67... it was definitely past its sell by date. This is due to music evolving, especially in ’67 where the white West Coast sounds took off, plus heavier drugs. For some it was boredom or for many, getting married and settling down. Mod may have still been found in Northern England  and other places, but London was pretty much over it.

RNRChemist: It seems that most of the folks you interviewed in the book all share the opinion that when Mod went commercial and Carnaby Street became the epicenter for Swinging London, the scene moved past its expiration date (so to speak). Was that the death of the movement, losing its authenticity and becoming too mainstream?

PA: I think it was the combination of all that I mentioned in the previous question. In ’66, Swinging London was a tourist trap and a million miles away from how it all started.

RNRChemist: Regarding the people you interviewed, it was so wonderful to read all of their memories and to see many of them in their youth in the midst of the Mod scene. How did you manage to track down so many of them?

PA: Sheer hard graft is the plain answer. Just tracing leads, phone numbers on bits of paper etc. Asking one interviewee if he had other contacts, that sort of thing.

RNRChemist: Who were your favorites of the people you interviewed?

PA: Hard to say really as since making the book I have become good friends with many. Terry from The Eyes, Ali from The Birds, Chris Farlowe, Steve Ellis, Jeff Dexter, and Mike Quinn are some of "the famous" that I now count as friends, which is as surreal as it is lovely. Then the Mods: Mickey Tenner, Lloyd Johnson, and the Portsmouth Mods were all really great. I had loads of fun interviewing Jimmy James, Geno, Martha Reeves, Eddie Floyd, Owen Gray, Derrick Morgan…the whole journey was a blast! I had a lovely couple of meetings with Ian McLagan, sadly the last one was just before he died.

RNRChemist: Personal opinion of course, but who do you think were the leading figures during the scene, and why?

PA: Mickey Tenner was very influential and I was so glad to have him on board for the book. To me, the Birdcage Mods from Portsmouth seemed to have the whole idea and attitude down to a tee. I love those guys. Guy Stevens and Roger Eagle in terms of the music. I believe Chris Barber is the unsung hero of the scene, really. Whilst he was never a Mod, he deserves credit for bringing over all those early visiting blues artists. Of course then there are Andrew Loog Oldham, Peter Meaden, Johnny Moke, Willie Deasy. Most movers and shakers were just the actual Mods.

RNRChemist: Were there any interesting or crazy stories you gathered while interviewing everyone that didn't make the final cut of the book? Any chance you could share one with us?

PA: Ha ha! I could tell you that Andy Ellison and Johns Children actually got the job of painting The New Scene Club white after the Scene Club renamed itself in ’66 and got rid of its old blacked out image. John Lee Hooker used to piss in old empty beer bottles whilst on tour in the back of a van. One day another band used the van, took a corner too fast, and found themselves drenched in stale JLH piss!

RNRChemist: Which of the British bands of the 1960s era do you think were the most authentically Mod? Which ones are your favourites?

PA: I think Rod Stewart was definitely about on the scene in the early days so deserves more credit than he gets...he was everywhere! I believe that Georgie Fame had a lot of suss to cover what they covered musically. The Animals were also loved by the very hip crowd. There are loads of little bands that maybe could be there such as The Wes Minster Five or the Bo Street Runners. The Stones and the Yardbirds were very sussed in their early choice of blues material. You have to put in The Who really, because although kind of manufactured to be Mods, they were in the epicentre of it all. They were in the right clubs and had first pick of a lot of Guy Stevens records. Out of all the singers, to me Chris Farlowe has one of the most authentic sounding voices. Later bands like The Small Faces, The Action, and The Fleur De Lis contained actual Mods so are obviously included. I love aspects of all of these bands, really, so it’s hard to choose. I think The Action are to me the ideal package, though, in terms of material, look, and that fantastic Reggie King voice.

RNRChemist: Why do you think that, alone amongst the big 60s British bands, the Beatles were never really embraced by Mods? They seemed to dress the part and share the same influences as the Mods, yet their brand of pop and rock seemed to fall on deaf ears when it came to the Mods...

PA: Time has been a bit unfair to them. As my book states, they were one of Britain’s first bands to cover R&B. "Some Other Guy" by Ritchie Barrett was a fantastic song to cover, as was "Twist and Shout." But to London Mods they were aliens from "up North" and so were seen as behind the times. Their squeaky clean image was a bit too produced and they were perceived as a girls pop band. Although The Animals were from up North, too (Newcastle), I think they were regarded as a bit more "street" and tough, working class so they were accepted a bit better.

RNRChemist: Along these same lines, the rock and skiffle crazes of the 50s led to a lot of kids picking up an instrument and starting bands; indeed that's how almost all of the 60s bands got started. Yet it seems most of the kids who came up Mod weren't inspired to do the same...they were content to go see shows, dance, and listen to the records. Am I off base, and if not why do you think this is the case?

PA: Can’t really see that, as most early Mod type bands featured at least one person from art school so I think there was a definite creative flow there. Surely the Beatles and The Stones got as many bands to pick up guitars and form bands as did Elvis and even The Shadows? Most later rock groups like Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie, The Faces, and Status Quo all had that Mod background element in them.

RNRChemist: What aspect of Mod fashion is your favorite? How about least favorite?  What do you think are the best and worst aspects of Mod culture?

PA: I love a good button down shirt and tailored trousers with nice loafers, basket weaves, lace ups etc. A beautiful well cut suit is always aesthetically pleasing. I hate all the psychedelic garb, frilly shirts, day glow, big long collars. I’ve never liked boating blazers. The best part of Mod culture is the creative one, as in discovering new records, styles and facts. The worst part is the destructive one, which is the pompous, blinkered and egotistical bullshit that pollutes it.

RNRChemist: In your view, what was it that made the late 1970s climate in the UK and US so ripe for the Mod revival?

PA: The same as when the original scene sparked in to life: Britain was a depressing place. Faded rock stars, strikes, hippie flares, bad haircuts. Punk cut through that all, thank God, but a lot of it came from a middle class background. That added to the fact that punk was kind of like the Rocker thing in that the whole dressing down look was what the establishment and the general public expected. Working class kids in well-cut suits wasn’t, so the boundaries were blurred. Punk gave it the spark of energy needed but lost momentum. The Mod revival just added the energy needed.

RNRChemist: Which bands, if any, from the second generation of Mod (say, the late 1970s Mod revival through to the late 1990s BritPop scene) do you think embodied the spirit of the whole thing (whether in their fashion or music, or both)?

PA: The Jam obviously deserve most credit for having influencing so many of the bands to form or "go Mod." Paul Weller was very quick to point out that The Jam were not a Mod band, although he was a Mod in a band. Weller was pretty shrewd there and deserves credit. He saw what happened to Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69 when you align yourselves in such a way. They had trouble at lots of Sham gigs. Secret Affair took on the banner and suffered lots of trouble at their gigs with the Glory Boys etc. The Chords were great energy-wise as were The Purple Hearts. In honesty, The Style Council probably got a lot closer to the original ethics of Mod in the 80s. By the 80s bands were less punk influenced, so bands like The Prisoners, The Moment, Fast Eddie, and Makin’ Time were accepted by more discerning Mods. Although there were lots of fodder amongst them with bands like The Gents and such. I could not relate to these.

RNRChemist: What are your favorite bands from the original 60s Mod era? Favorite albums? Favorite songs?

PA: My favourite musical style is the blues so I love Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and all those greats. Booker T & the MG’s "Green Onions" probably is the ultimate Mod tune in my opinion with "Ain’t Love Good, Ain’t Love Proud" by Tony Clarke a close second. But my personal favoutite song ever is "Heatwave" by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. I love all the stuff really. Not a fan of Northern Soul but I like bits of it. R&B, Jazz and Ska are always in my DJ sets. Paul Weller gets a lot of stick but in my opinion he is probably the most influential Mod ever. As much as I love the Small Faces, Marriott and co. were only part of the scene for a very small period. Bands like The Eyes and the Creation always sound so exciting, even today. I’m proud I still like all my revival stuff, too. Hell, life is good. Mod got me in to so many different things, from French Jazz to Brasilian sambas!!!

RNRChemist: Paul, thank you so much for speaking with me and enlightening us with your knowledge and thoughts on all things Mod! It was a true pleasure! For my readers, I can't recommend this book enough. If you're a fan of anything we touched upon in our discussion above, you need Paul's book as it is truly the bible for all things Mod.

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BOOK REVIEW: When the World Came to the Isle of Wight, Volume 1: Stealing Dylan From Woodstock

When it comes to 1960s music festivals, there are three that are iconic and forever ingrained in the collective memory: Monterey Pop in June 1967, which was the coming-out party for the 60s counterculture during the Summer of Love; Woodstock in August 1969, "three days of peace, love, and music" that featured some of the biggest names in rock music and the largest gathering of hippies, music fans, and countercultural figures on American soil (at the time); and Altamont in December 1969, a poorly organized, chaotic, and violent festival headlined by the Rolling Stones which culminated in the stabbing death of a drug-crazed fan, all captured on film and signifying for many the death of the 1960s dream. There were, of course, many other rock festivals toward the latter part of the 1960s and beyond, but two of the most significant of them all have flown under the radar for the past forty-five years: the 2nd and 3rd Isle of Wight Festivals in August 1969 and 1970, respectively. There has been a lot of mythology and misinformation surrounding the festivals over the intervening years...luckily, for the first time one of the men who was at the forefront of organizing these legendary gatherings is finally telling the real story behind them. When the World Came to the Isle of Wight is a two-volume set, and Volume 1: Stealing Bob Dylan From Woodstock will be out in June 2015 and is the subject of this review.

***special thanks to Guy at Medina Publishing for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

The Isle of Wight is a diamond-shaped island immediately off the south coast of England in the English Channel, a short ferry ride across the Solent from Portsmouth. As a county within England, it's home to ~130,000 people and has historically been a vacation and retirement destination for the affluent and well-connected. However, thanks to the big dreams and hard work of a family transplanted from Derbyshire, for a brief moment in the late 1960s the island became a mecca for rock music fans from around the world. Hailing from a multi-generational family of coal miners in the Midlands, the Foulk family made their way to the Isle of Wight and settled there. While the four brothers and their sister were of the right age to be part of the 1960s generation, as author Ray Foulk puts it, on the island they were fairly insulated from the wider youth counterculture and would do some major catching up, especially as they eventually planned their festivals. The three brothers central to the story, Ray, Ronnie, and Bill were all young middle-class businessmen in when the idea of promoting a music festival on the island was first thought up in the late 1960s. Using their business sense, some fortuitous connections, and their own hard work and industriousness they staged the first Isle of Wight Festival in August 1968 with Jefferson Airplane headlining. It was a one-day affair and drew a respectable ~25,000 concertgoers while going off fairly smoothly. The brothers (as well as their other brother, sister, and mother...truly a family affair!) were successful in raising local funding and advertising, befriending a local farmer who offered use of his land and saving money by using Ray's connections and career as a printer to make their own tickets and posters. While they lost money on the endeavor, they gained valuable insight into what to do (and what not to do), and the idea was planted to stage another festival the following year. However, this second one needed to be bigger and better in order to draw a larger crowd and gain more exposure. They intended to achieve this by making the whole experience grander: spreading the festival over the three-day August Bank Holiday weekend and booking bigger groups as a draw to get fans to come across the water to the island. The first major headliner they booked was The Who; other big acts like the Moody Blues, Free, and Joe Cocker were added to the bill, as were many smaller bands who filled out the bill across the weekend. However, with the Who headlining the Saturday an even bigger name was needed to headline Sunday night and close the festival. While the Beatles or Rolling Stones would have been obvious choices, the Foulks didn't think they had a shot at either one of them and neither would have made sense in any event: the Beatles hadn't performed live since 1966 (apart from the rooftop concert in January of '69) and the Stones were just getting back onto the road in the wake of Brian Jones' death in July 1969 (their legendary American tour of 1969 would start two months later in October of '69). On a lark, one of the Foulk brothers (who were operating their promotion company under the name of Fiery Creations) suggested Bob Dylan. This was an interesting and ambitious idea for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that Dylan had been a recluse since his motorcycle accident in July 1966 and had only made a couple of cameo live appearances at benefit concerts since. Figuring that they had nothing to lose, the Foulks made tentative overtures to Dylan's camp. When they weren't rejected outright, they kept the dialogue open and eventually warmed Dylan to the idea of playing there. Much of it had to do with the Isle being the former home of Tennyson, whom Dylan greatly admired and whose Farringford House remained a shrine to the poet's devotees. The negotiations went back and forth for several weeks and involved a lot of work on the part of Fiery Creations until Dylan finally accepted. Then came to daunting task of raising the required funding, as requested by Dylan's managers Bert Block and Albert Grossman, in time for the festival. Though it wasn't all smooth sailing, a combination of incredibly hard work and several lucky breaks led to the money being raised.  A suitably larger festival site was secured and set up, a house and support staff were rented for Bob and his wife Sara, and the festival was able to stay on schedule and open on time.

Some 150,000 people swarmed the Isle of Wight from the UK, America, Australia, and Europe for the three day festival that followed hot on the heels of the more famous Woodstock Festival of two weeks prior. In fact, the histories of these two festivals are more entwined than is known...certainly more than I knew, at least. Even though the Woodstock festival took place some seventy miles away in Bethel, New York, promoter Michael Lang made a deliberate effort to name the event Woodstock for two reasons: he wanted to use the town's name and notoriety as Dylan's hideaway to attract attention to his festival, and he hoped to entice Dylan out of seclusion to return to the stage at the event. However, it served to have the opposite effect, irritating Dylan to the point that there was no way he would consider appearing. Much of this was down to the fans who made the pilgrimage to Woodstock and harassed Dylan and his family at their home by stalking them and hiding out on their property. Thus, the escape to England to play the Isle of Wight held additional appeal to Bob and Sara. On the whole, the festival went off without a hitch and the atmosphere was enhanced by several giants of the rock scene who were in attendance, from Keith Richards and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones to Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton of Cream, and most notably three of the Beatles: John, George, and Ringo (Linda McCartney had given birth to Paul's daughter Mary days before and so they didn't attend). All three Beatles and their wives were Dylan's constant companions during the weekend with George acting as unofficial host. George and Dylan had gotten to know each other the previous November in the aftermath of the White Album sessions and would continue their friendship until George's death in 2001. Ringo was a friend as well, whereas Bob's relationship with Lennon was always a bit more complex. Both admired each others talents and had known each other for years, but John was alternately in awe of and paranoid of Bob. However, even though the Beatles didn't perform at the festival, their presence at the event loomed large and gave a stamp of credibility to the entire affair.

From the opening ceremony on Friday night to the final note of Dylan's set late Sunday evening, the entire festival went off, for the most part, without issue. There were issues with inadequate restroom facilities, food vendors prices gouging festival goers, and the noise levels bothering a farmer and his wife whose house immediately butted against the backstage area, but overall it ran smoothly. There were only two big crises, both of which happened behind the scenes: the Who's helicopter made a harrowing landing in the backstage area when the updraft from the rotors blew the plywood boards that acted as a platform all about (luckily no one was hurt although one struck the tail rotor and almost incapacitated the chopper), and the biggest crisis of the night: the two-hour delay preceding the Band's set. One of Dylan's stipulations when he agreed to appear at the festival was that his backing group, The Band, would have a set of their own immediately preceding his own. His record company also insisted on recording Dylan and the Band's show for a possible live album. The two-hour delay was due to technical issues in setting up the additional recording equipment, but it agitated Dylan enough that the Foulks were nervous it might all fall apart at the last moment. However, as soon as the Band finally began their set, Dylan calmed down and he went on to deliver one of the most unique sets of his career. Now singing in the affected country croon he'd adopted on his most recent album, 1969's Nashville Skyline, as opposed to his famous nasal whine, he eschewed almost all of his most popular songs and instead focused on the pastoral songs culled from Skyline and his 1967 album John Wesley Harding. By this point in his life, Dylan was married with five children and enjoyed the quiet domesticity of his home life; this is reflected in his albums during his reclusive period as well as in his set list at the Isle of Wight. Playing for around an hour, his set was rapturously received by those in the crowd although the press reaction was mixed, with history generally agreeing with those who savaged his performance. Indeed, Dylan was so dispirited by the reviews of his performance when he got back home to New York a few days later that he didn't play another concert, save for an appearance at George Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, until 1974.

In the meantime, the Foulks were left in the afterglow of the successful festival while facing the daunting tasks of cleaning up the festival site and starting their planning to do it all again next year. While they didn't make much money from the festival, they made enough to pay off the bills they accrued in its planning and execution and learned a lot about what they could do better in 1970. The great thing about this book is how Ray Foulk, who was at the center of the whole enterprise, describes all of the behind the scenes planning, negotiating, and maneuvering that was required to pull the whole thing off. As he makes plainly clear, he and his brothers were not hippies or tuned-in rock impresarios; they were simply young businessmen who happened to also be music fans who thought it would be cool to stage a festival on their little island. The Foulks wore suits and ties to work each day, didn't do drugs, and tried to run their business and turn a profit, the last of which damaged their credibility in the eyes of more left-leaning music fans and critics. Indeed, Ray mentions how they were criticized for not putting on a "free festival" (a criticism that would be even louder the following year) while making a great point that not only did somebody need to pay for the concessions, restrooms, and festival site infrastructure, but the artists themselves weren't playing for free! Indeed, as the highest-paid performer on the bill, Dylan took a lot of flak in the press for how much he was paid (his total, including travel and lodging expenses, amounted to some £80,000), with one tabloid referencing his "million-dollar" payday. Foulk is also refreshingly candid about many of the people he worked with in those days. Two of them in particular come instantly to mind: compere Rikki Farr, whose fast-talking and hip manner (not to mention his being the son of famous boxer Tommy Farr) was both an asset and a liability, and Judy Lewis, hired as housekeeper and cook for the Dylans at their rented house. While Lewis was good at her job, she also tried to get a bit too close to her famous guests and began inserting herself into situations that she was not intended to be involved in when she was hired...this eventually led to her dismissal. Foulk is by no means vicious in his recounting...in fact, he's exceedingly fair and in some spots, probably too kind given some of the situations that resulted from these actions (I'm thinking in particular of the poor press coverage they got after Farr insulted several reporters from the stage prior to Dylan's set). The goal with these two books is to set the record straight and tell the real story of how three brothers, with help from their family and friends, were able to stage two of the biggest music festivals in history. Stealing Dylan from Woodstock was a stunning achievement but it also meant that they had to do something even bigger and better the following year. As for how they topped that, the final chapter is a lead-in to the forthcoming second volume discussing the biggest live act of 1969-70 (and noted Dylan devotee) Jimi Hendrix. Indeed, the 1970 festival would be Hendrix' final UK appearance as he would tragically die in London a few weeks later.

While the book may seem like it's too specific and too England-centric for a non-Brit (such as myself) to enjoy, I don't feel this is the case. True, I'm a student and fan of the era and its music and also a lifelong Anglophile, but I feel that anyone who is a fan of those times will enjoy the book. In particular, Dylan fans should read this because of the interesting way Ray Foulk places the event in the context of Dylan's career. The Isle of Wight Festival in 1969 was his only headlining concert appearance in the span between July 1966 and 1974 and found Dylan at a point in his life where he was eschewing social commentary in his songs, shunning fame, and embracing being a husband and father. As such, his set at the festival remains unique in his history and the book manages to capture the spirit of the times and of Dylan's life and career at that very moment. Beyond merely being a book about a festival, Foulk does a masterful job in telling the true story of what it took to get Dylan on the bill and what it all meant for all involved. The text is accompanied by photographs of the various artists on stage and in attendance as well as many fascinating behind the scenes pictures. There are candid shots of Dylan, the Beatles, and other various famous faces in attendance. Scans of the original tickets, posters, and promotional materials prepared for Dylan in order to entice him to accept their invitation are included and do a nice job showing the amount of care and detail that went into the promotion of the festival...truly artifacts from a time long gone. The biggest (and really, only) complaint I have with the book are the numerous typos sprinkled throughout the text, as well as a couple of miscaptioned photos. These are minor, however, and don't detract from the impact or enjoyment of the book. It's clear that the authors did a lot of research to fill in the gaps of Ray Foulk's own story as evidenced by the numerous footnotes throughout the book as well as lengthy list of cited source material at the end of the book.

(Links to the rest of the Who's set at the festival can be found on YouTube in the above videos)

Beyond placing the event in the proper context of its time in the history of popular music and Bob Dylan's career and telling the true story of the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, the biggest impact Stealing Dylan From Woodstock had on me was that it did the impossible: it made me finally become a Dylan fan. I've long respected and acknowledged his influence but I've always maintained the position that the best versions of his songs were covers by other artists. I had heard many of his songs and even enjoyed several of them but I just couldn't get into his music, or rather I should say that I never put in any real effort to do so. However, over the course of reading this book I decided to make a concerted effort to listen to his music and to my shock and surprise, I found that I really loved it! So even if the book was no good, I would forever be indebted to Stealing Dylan for at least opening me up to a whole new world of music from one of the great artists of our times. Thankfully, as I've written above that isn't the case: this is a great book and I commend and thank Ray Foulk for telling his story and doing it as well as he did. The only difficult thing now is waiting for Volume 2 to be published...

MY RATING: 9/10

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